Monday, April 12, 2010

Lost: All You Need Is Love?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Lost is about love. How love motivates us, what we will do for love, and what happens when we don’t feel loved. From season 1 it’s been established this show is about connections – how we connect to those around us, even when we’re not aware of those connections (especially in season 1, think back to how many of the paths crossed before they got on the plane but didn’t know it) but attached to many of those connections is love. It’s how we truly connect.

In The Prisoner, that amazing cult TV show from the 1960s that Lost has been heavily influenced by, the final episode was an insane drug-addled trip through this underground tunnel, with the sounds of The Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” pumping through the cave as various strange creatures danced about (seriously, you have to see it to believe it). And while I hope this is ALL this show borrows from The Prisoner finale, it’s interesting that even though Number 6 didn’t have many real connections, if any, that one of the things we take away from that series is “all you need is love.”

I talked about this last week in the Globe chat and one person engaged me extensively on it, saying he didn’t believe it would all come down to love because they’re motivated by much more than that, and it’s about free will vs. destiny. Absolutely... I agree that it will come down to those two things, which are also choice vs. fate. But why do we make those choices? Love.

Kate has come back to the island because of her love for Aaron. This love is one of the deepest in the series... she would do ANYTHING for that child, and she has come back to the one place on earth she desperately tried to leave, just to try to find the mother of the boy she loves more than anything. She killed her own (step)father because of her love of Diane, and believing she was doing the right thing. Her pain and her constant need to run stems from the hurt she got when Diane rejected her... when her mom didn’t return that love for her. Remember how painful it was for her to walk away from her husband, or the look on her face when Sawyer jumped from the helicopter, or the anger when Jeardy Jack stood at the airport screaming that they had to go back. She has loved all three men, and she has hurt them or has been hurt by them, and many of her decisions have been based on this love.

Sayid is a torturer, but he’s also a lover. He has spent so much of his life repenting for his sins as a torturer, and looking for Nadia. He loves Nadia so deeply, so completely, that when he lands on the island and believes that maybe she really is dead, he turns to Shannon, and gives her more love and passion than she’s ever received from someone in her life. The cold person he becomes when Ana Lucia shoots Shannon in front of him stems from the love he felt for Shannon. And that coldness returns when Nadia dies... Remember the look on his face when he came out of the press conference and Nadia was standing there? It’s one of my favourite moments of the series... the way he stares at her, and then blinks, hard, as if he can’t believe the love of his life is really standing before him. He’s only happy when he’s with her, and when she’s gone, he slowly dies inside. Now he’s just a shell.

Sawyer has been motivated by revenge, but it’s a revenge that stems from the love he has for his parents and the anger that people he cared about – and who loved him a lot – could have been taken from him in such a violent way. He wants to cut himself off from everyone, but it’s his love for Kate that makes him become part of the group on the island. He cares about his fellow survivors to the extent that he becomes head of security for Dharma because of his need to take care of them (and think of him running through New Otherton with Claire in his arms... another thing he’s done because of caring for another person). He falls in love with Juliet, and even if Kate is the soulmate he continued to pine for, he truly loved Juliet and is gutted when she’s gone.

Ben loves the mother he never knew, and eventually runs out into the woods to find an apparition of her. There seems to have been a love between he and Annie, the girl we saw in “The Man Behind the Curtain,” and he ultimately kills his father. Why? Because his father didn’t love him... Ben is ALSO motivated by love, but it’s a love that was denied to him. And he loves Alex deeply – we see in the sideways world that he has a connection to her still and gives up everything for her sake – and when she dies, it causes him to go off the deep end completely and lose control. Ben loves too.

Jack was denied the love he needed from his father, and even his mother has a tendency to be cold (think of her blaming Jack for his father going to Australia in the first place). He is motivated by a desire to fix things – it’s his thang – but he falls in love with Kate on the island, something he didn’t see coming. Off the island, they fall in love, and it’s when that love falls apart he becomes so obsessed with going back to the island to “fix things,” to make him and Kate NOT HAPPEN, because the pain of losing the love he had from her is worse than anything else he’s ever experienced. He drops a bomb because of his love for Kate.

Jin and Sun feel deeply in love off the island, and Jin gave up his own morals just to be with her, having to go and work for Paik. But when that begins to eat at him, and the love that she felt from Jin at one time seems to go away, she moves away from him. She not only falls in love with Jae Lee, but she plots to leave her husband... again, she’s motivated by love. The love that she lost, love for herself that she knows she should be treated better than this. And then, on the island... things change. Jin has always loved Sun, but now that they’re on the island, no longer under her father’s thumb, his love can truly shine. They’re closer than ever, she becomes pregnant, and she manages to get off the island, shattered because she thinks he’s gone. Everything she does after that – the coup against her father’s company, seeking out Widmore and Ben – is out of revenge for the love she lost when Jin died. And when she thinks he might be alive again... she returns. She loves him so much she will go back to that island to find him. And it’s her love for Ji Yeon that makes that decision a difficult one.

Hurley loves his ma more than anything. He won the lottery and thought he was cursed, but he believes that because the people he loves begin getting hurt, and despite him always walking through everything completely unscathed, he cannot stand seeing the ones he love getting hurt around him. That scene in “The Lie” when his ma sits next to him and asks him to tell her the truth, and he spills all, is one of the most heartrendingly beautiful scenes in the entire series. He loves her so much he trusts her to listen to him. He also loves his father – the one who abandoned him and only returned for the money – because he remembers the man he used to be, and is so caring and loving (like his ma) that he believes maybe his father really does love him and want a relationship with him. And maybe he’s right. Hurley fell in love with Libby, and loved Charlie as a friend, and is motivated to do things because of the loss he felt when he lost both of them.

Claire loved Charlie, and is gutted when she finds out he’s died (for a minute and a half at least... ahem) and her love for Aaron makes her almost serene on the island. Off the island she was going to give him up for adoption, but the moment he’s born the love in her eyes shows us she’s almost grateful for not having the opportunity to give him up. Now that we have the sad Crazytown Claire, her very madness stems from the immense love she has for her son, and despite the creepy shivers it sends down my spine every time I see it, that skeleton baby of hers was constructed to give her a physical connection to the baby she lost, and it’s an incredibly sad thing to behold. Once I get past the horror of it all.

Juliet loved Sawyer completely, and she also fell for Jack. We’ve seen the love she feels for her sister, Rachel, devoting her life’s work to making her sister’s cancer-ridden body fertile for a baby. When she’s offered the opportunity to go to the island, she at first says no, but her sister convinces her to go (it’s only six months after all, right?) But when Juliet realizes that the Others are not going to keep their word, she asks to go home. She loves her sister, she wants to meet her niece/nephew, and she can’t bear to be apart from them any longer. Ben offers her the choice: go home now, and watch your sister die rather than give birth, or I will cure her cancer and you have to stay here. To Juliet there’s no choice: she stays. She gives up her life to save her sister’s. Think back to that scene we saw the day the plane crashed, when Ben took Juliet to the Flame station to show her video footage of Rachel playing with Julian. Juliet’s voice chokes and shakes as she reaches out and touches the screen, longing to touch her sister and hold her nephew, but knowing they’re as far away from her as they seem on the screen. She has fallen in love with Goodwin, and risks everything (even danger) to keep that going. She’s found that connection on the island for now, but she would give it up to return to her family. One of the tragedies of Juliet is that she died on the island before she ever got to see that nephew of hers. Juliet’s life has been all about love, and her close-to-final words before she lets go of Sawyer’s hand are to tell him how much she loves him. And her final act? To set off a bomb because of how much she loves him... to make so he’ll never have to come to the island. She doesn’t hit that bomb for herself – she hits it for him.

Characters who are now gone were motivated by love: Eko sacrificed his soul for his little brother Yemi, a brother he never stopped loving despite everything. Ana Lucia’s anger and coldness stemmed from the fact that a man shot her in her pregnant belly and killed the child she loved so much. Boone was in love with Shannon, and that love was painful and difficult, but he couldn’t help himself.

And Rose and Bernard? Seriously. Cutest couple in love EVER. Rose could feel that Bernard was alive, and never mourned him, never wavered from her certainty that he was alive and well... and she was right.

Just a couple of weeks ago we realized Richard Alpert, the man who didn’t appear to have any ties and who was stoic and almost asexual, was actually deeply in love with his wife, and he killed a man accidentally in his desperation to save her. Because of the murder he was sent to the island, and he has quietly pined for her for over a century. When she appeared to him and he couldn’t hear her talking to him, but wanted to hear her so badly, it was absolutely heartbreaking. If he could have one wish, it would be to be with her forever.

John Locke has always stood apart from everyone. In “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham,” Kate tells him that his problem is that he’s never loved anyone. But she’s wrong. He loved Helen. And he wanted to BE loved... but his mother gave him up and his father had nothing to do with him. His foster mother treated him like a plague, and when he finally found his parents after many years, his mother was using him to make some money and his father was using him for a kidney. The moment they got what they wanted out of him, they tossed him aside like yesterday’s garbage. Locke is motivated by a need and desire for someone to love him, and he has so much love to give, but no one to give it to. So he channels his love into a “greater good” scenario where he thinks he’s doing something for everyone. And in the end, if no one else will love him, then maybe he’ll love himself. But he can’t even do that, because he believes he’s a failure and a loser. And that’s why Locke’s is the saddest story for me.

And then... there’s Desmond. That man who brought it all here in the first place. His “I love you, Penny” will always be one of the lines that sticks with me from this series. In my first Finding Lost book, I wrote, “People have killed, fought, and maimed in the name of love on this island, but no one has given up their life for it.” And then I asked what Lost will come down to, and asked, “Will love prevail?” In my episode guide for “The Constant,” in my season 4 book, I wrote, “Unlike so many of the other people who have been brought to this island, Desmond has hope, and that hope rests with Penny. The love story between these two is one for the ages... Desmond is not shattered like the rest of these survivors, and so far, he’s the closest to salvation.” In the season 4 finale episode guide, I wrote, “Desmond represents the notion that love is the key to survival.” And in my commentary on “The Incident” in my season 5 book, I wrote, “What will conquer evil? Desmond’s story always stands apart from that of the rest of the characters’ arcs and his is the story of love winning out over everything...” Back in “Live Together, Die Alone,” when we first got Desmond’s backstory, everything went haywire in the hatch and he ran to the bookshelf and pulled off Our Mutual Friend, and when he opened the book, out fell a key and a love letter from Penny. At that moment I wondered if love might be the key to the show... it’s certainly the key to Desmond’s story. Now he’s back on the island, and he’s the only one who can perhaps save everyone. The man who was willing to die for love might be the one to help everyone else find the love they’ve so desperately needed.

As I say at the end of my season 5 book, Lost is the show for the thinking viewer, so it almost sounds like sacrilege what I’m saying here, but we do so much for love. Love for our children, our spouses, our girlfriends/boyfriends, our friends, our family, our parents... love for ourselves. Even selfish motivations are done out of a self-love.

In the sideways world, three characters in “Happily Ever After” have a glimpse of the other world, and believe that maybe this isn’t real: Desmond, who realizes it after he meets Penny; Daniel, who has his vision right after the first time he sees Charlotte; and Charlie, who, in a heroin-induced haze, sees an image of Claire and knows he’s meant to be with her. All three of them experience a moment of the feeling of love they felt for someone else in the other world, and realize that this world isn’t real – the real world is the one that contains those women... with them.

So yes, this show is about time travel and physics and philosophy and history and political science and literature and religion and heady choices and good & evil... but it’s also about love. SO much of it about love. And I don’t know why, if it all came down to that, that an ending that suggested all we need is love would be a bad thing. I would embrace that ending, for it would bring the entire series full circle.

47 comments:

But as to whether the ending will be satisfactory or not, I think we need to trust in the writers, and JJ Abrams.

My loved one and I watched all of JJ Abrams' "Alias" series together. That show too was wacky, and divergent threads were sometimes never solved.

That show also dealt with issues like time travel. There was some Leonardo da Vinci-like character named "Rambaldi" in the 1500s who was drawing artwork of 20th century spy Sydney Bristow.

Hmm, "Sydney..." Australia? Never thought of that connection before.

Anyway, even late into the last season, we were pulling out our hair trying to figure out what was going on. "Lemmee see, there's some "Rambaldi experiment," from the 1500s, and evil people are building a working model and it's a huge red rubber ball that hangs over a city and represents ultimate evil, and -- whaaaa?"

In Alias, a big red ball. In Lost, a smoke monster.

But the last episode of Alias was the best ending of a TV show I have ever seen. Definitively, the question of whether the ambiguous "Arvin Sloane" character was good or evil was answered. And, Sloane got exactly what he wanted and strived for the whole series, albeit it was one of those "Better watch out what you ask for, you might get it" scary results.

So have faith, Losties! Alias's ending rocked. I think, too, so will Lost's. Like Marebabe or whoever said a few posts ago, stop over-thinking, suspend your disbelief, and just enjoy the ride.

Nikki, I don't disagree that "love" might be the prominent theme, but in Alias it seemed the writers were going more for a FEELING, a rightness, than an intellectual satisfaction. I think maybe also in Lost. If anything, the show is a love letter to its intellectual fans. We may only be left in the end with a warm, soothing satisfaction, an affection for the bygone show, Lost.

Oh, that was beautiful! Thanks, Nikki, for that big, juicy love letter to LOST. I was just thinking about getting off the computer for awhile in order to watch tonight’s episode of 24 which I taped earlier. But I simply HAD to read and savor this Monday night post first. It’s interesting, in the past week, since “Happily Ever After”, a lot of people who write about LOST have started to see the importance of love to the story. But we Nik at Niters know that you’ve been saying it for YEARS. You’re so smart! :)

If I speak 9 languages (including Korean, Japanese, Spanish, French, & Russian), but have not love, I am only a smoke monster sound effect. If I have Desmond or Eloise's gift of prophecy and can fathom all of Lost's mysteries and all obscure literary references, and if I have Locke's faith that can move islands, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all my lottery winnings to the poor and surrender my body to the looking glass, failsafe key, Jughead bomb, donkey wheel, or flaming arrows, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is 6-season patient, love is Rose kind. It does not envy buried diamonds, it does not boast of ping-pong prowess, it is not Jack-the-fixer proud. It is not Frogurt rude, it is not Sawyer self-seeking, it is not Locke easily angered, it keeps no Ana-Lucia record of wrongs. Love does not delight in caves of evil but rejoices with the lighthouse of truth... Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror...And now these three remain: John's faith, Desmond's hope and LOVE. But the greatest of these is LOVE.

Absolutely, amazingly sweet. I love that love is such an important part of Lost. It makes the horrors of life on the island almost peaceful. Serene. Calm. In thinking about love as the central theme, I am very satisfied.

Nikki, you are amazing for putting this together so early. I can't thank you enough for all that you have enlightened me to throughout the seasons.

I remember getting so teary-eyed at the end of "The Constant". The screen cutting back and forth between Desmond and Penny's faces as they exchanged words before the phone gave out was priceless for me.

Nikki, after reading that blog post, I think it's safe to say that you quite literally "wrote the book on love".

Even though Widmore has always acted scary & evil, we can clearly see he has a great love for his daughter, just like Ben.The only characters on the show who don't seem to exhibit any signs of love (so far) are, of course, MIB and Jacob. But I'm sure that's subject to change, because MIB seems to me like a man driven by passion, and those type of men usually have women involved at some point in their lives. Jacob, meanwhile, seems more monk-like. They remind me of Jedi & Sith: the Jedi (Jacob) are apparently good, adhering to strict disciplines & giving up one's own wants and needs for the greater good; the Sith (MIB), prefer to use their power for their own benefit, and often let their emotions get the best of them.The most rattled we've ever seen MIB so far is when he spotted that blond kid in the jungle. I'm sure there's more to come regarding that.

As for the Beatles...LOST has always had some pretty groovy tunes in its episodes (more so in the earlier seasons). Maybe they'll play a bit of "All You Need Is Love" in the finale.

@convergence: many hardcore "Alias" fans (myself included) were mightily disappointed with the careless winding down of that brilliant series. If for no other reason than the insane portrayal of Irina (who used her final "Alias" appearance to channel Dark Willow), the finale felt like an utter betrayal to those of us who were already P.O.'d at the cancellation and subsequent shortening of the final season.

That bitter memory aside, though, let's hope that Team Darlton pays more attention to detail as they close out "Lost" than the writing team on "Alias" did during their euthanization of that show. The only reason Anna Espinosa didn't kill Michael Vaughn in 5.14 is because the writers forgot that Sydney and Vaughn HAD been to Cartagena 3 seasons earlier.

Today's TV shows are subjected to a level of relentless scrutiny that "Alias" just barely managed to predate, so I suspect that a Cartagena-type blunder in the closing days of "Lost" would cause the kind of internet meltdown that would somehow have to be blamed on Chinese hackers.

"Lost" has always received better treatment than "Alias", whether from ABC, CTV (who I will never forgive for their shameful scheduling of the last 2 seasons of "Alias" at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday), or even Bad Robot itself, so there is every reason to believe that "Lost" will also receive a more satisfactory conclusion.

@TM Lawrence-"If I speak 9 languages (including Korean, Japanese, Spanish, French, & Russian), but have not love, I am only a smoke monster sound effect. If I have Desmond or Eloise's gift of prophecy and can fathom all of Lost's mysteries and all obscure literary references, and if I have Locke's faith that can move islands, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all my lottery winnings to the poor and surrender my body to the looking glass, failsafe key, Jughead bomb, donkey wheel, or flaming arrows, but have not love, I gain nothing."

I LOVE (pun intended) this. 1Corinthians, 13, NLV (New Lost Version)! Incidentally, this chapter (the real one, not yours) was the theme of my wedding 23 years ago, and we are still deeply in love! Love conquers all!

"Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: the salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way - an honorable way - in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.”

Now, I ask you - where else on the internets will you find Smoke Monsters, modified Bible passages, mentions of cleavage and Man's Search For Meaning? Just another day here on Nik at Nite!

My hope for the finale is that, somewhere inside MIB/Smokey, a vestige of Locke becomes the final Lostaway to choose love and connection over darkness and despair. Regardless of the electromagnetic energy or other dramatic maneuver that holds MIB in abeyance at the end ... I hope that Locke truly finds his redemption and overcomes the sense of futility that ended his life the first time around. How cool would that be?

A momentary diversion, not entirely off-topic: since I'm reading Clay Eals' exhaustive biography of the late, great songwriter/performer Steve Goodman and listening to his music alongside, I thought these lyrics might be appropriate.

With a nod to LOST's Dharma Initiative, low-tech approach, I give you Steve Goodman's "Video Tape":

'If your life was on video tapeWouldn't everything be all rightWhen your head hurts the morning afterYou could roll it back to late last nightYou could replay all the good partsAnd cut out what you don't likeOh wouldn't you be in good shapeIf your life was on video tape

If everybody had espEverything would be okWe could see trouble comingAnd we could step out of the wayWhen the grim reaper comes to callWe could arrange to be out of townIt would be the great escapeAnd you could put it on video tape

I don't have a video recorderI don't have a crystal ballAnd when i'm not with my babyThen i don't have very much at allI can't predict the futureAnd i sure can't change the pastBut i know it will all make senseIf you love me in the present tense'

For more info on Steve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Goodman

And, for more info on Clay Eals' bio of him (published by Nikki's ECW press):http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Goodman-Facing-Clay-Eals/dp/1550227327/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271172145&sr=1-2

We now return you to your regularly scheduled LOST discussion, already in progress. ; ]

Well done, Nikki. Though my zombie-like devotion (a concerning form a love but no less valid than any other!) compels me to enjoy everything you write:D

@TM - I'm an idiot and I thought you said you actually speak 9 languages. I had a hard time concentrating after that as you morphed into a James Bond type character in my head and were throwing secret knives you had hidden in your sleeves.

@humanebean: You said, “Now, I ask you – where else on the internets will you find Smoke Monsters, modified Bible passages, mentions of cleavage and Man’s Search For Meaning? Just another day here on Nik at Nite!” When I read that, I realized that a large part of LOST’s wide (but not universal) appeal is that it is a show about Life, the Universe, and EVERYTHING! There really is something for everyone – quantum physics, shirtless Sawyer – and for people who like to sample everything on the buffet, it’s a feast!

"I" am actually a Burtonian (Robert not Richard) dwarf sitting on the shoulder of giants. I have in toddler innocence stolen Nikki's cows and would mercurially return them, post haste: Nikki's genius simply ricocheted from a weary postmodern Lost world back in time to the timeless truth of the epistle before it pinged again and struck my ear and laid me flat, made me smile, made me cry, til I lay in awe on the bedroom floor and said : "Oh, oh, smother me Mother..

Oh BLAM you beat me by about 20 minutes... the haiku post is scheduled to go live at noon, and I actually open it saying, "I hope this goes up before people spontaneously break into haikus on other posts!" LOL!! You guys kill me...

Great post, Nikki! This reminds me of the beginning of Emanuel Swedenborg's Divine Love and Wisdom:

"Love is a person's life. People know that love exists, but they do not know what love is. They know from common speech that it exists. For instance, people say that he loves me, that a king loves his subjects and the subjects love their king, that a husband loves his wife, and a mother her children, and vice versa; also that this or that person loves his country, his fellow citizens, his neighbor. So, too, in regard to matters apart from person, as when it is said that someone loves this or that thing.But even though love is so frequently mentioned, still scarcely anyone knows what love is. Whenever someone reflects on it, he cannot then form for himself any mental idea of it. Therefore he says either that it is not anything, or that it is merely some stimulus flowing in through his vision, hearing, touch, and social interaction, which thus affects him. He is totally unaware that love is his very life, not only the general life in his whole body and the general life in all his thoughts, but also the life in every single particle of them.This the wise person may perceive from considering the following proposition: If you take away any impulse having to do with love, can you form any thought? Or can you perform any action? Is it not the case that as the affection belonging to love cools, in the same measure thought, speech and action cool? And the warmer the affection grows, the warmer they grow?Still, the wise person perceives this not from any concept that love is a person's life, but from his empirical observation that it is so."

I agree with you - I think it's all going to come down to love, since EVERYTHING comes down to love in the end. (As a Swedenborgian I keep hoping they'll show a character reading his Divine Providence, which is all about fate vs. free will. VERY unlikely, but still, I can hope!)

We’re talking about love here, and Nikki, you mentioned Rose and Bernard among LOST’s loving couples. I have a thing to add, and I first thought of this last summer during our S1 rewatch, but I didn’t bring it up then because I felt shy about discussing matters of faith on a pop culture blog. But the time has finally come.

Rose is a woman of faith. We’ve clearly seen it, but it was so long ago that it’s easy to forget. Remember that BEAUTIFUL scene, when Charlie was so lost and freaked out over his heroin withdrawals? He was crying as he said, “Help me.” And Rose said she wasn’t the one who could help him. She took his hand and began to pray. That’s one of my all-time favorite scenes in LOST. She is used to praying. She prays a lot. She’s on a very familiar footing with the Lord, and she is not at all surprised or alarmed when the Lord ANSWERS. Speaking of love, Rose loves the Lord, and loves her neighbors.

As a Christian, here is my explanation for Rose’s serene calm and unwavering trust that Bernard was all right after the crash. Probably the first thought she had after regaining consciousness was directed at the Lord: “Is Bernard all right?” And she clearly heard the answer: “Yes.” And that was enough for her. It wasn’t some sort of psychic connection, but belief in the comforting words the Lord spoke to her heart. I further think that when she sat apart in the first few days following the crash, she was “praying without ceasing.” Praying for Bernard, praying for the people around her who were trying to cope with the problems of survival on the Island, praying for all the concerns on her heart. This woman is all about love. That’s what I see when I look at Rose.

I have another take on the Rose & Bernard thing which also makes me squirm just a bit. Bernard's race was intentionally withheld from the viewer and a bit of a reveal. While they were apart, their anguish for reunion was was so palpable and pure that it invoked Aristophanes' speech from Plato's Symposium regarding the primordial state of androgynous man before God cleaved him/her into the two incomplete halves that would always seek reunion. Which is also to say the black and white Yin and Yang symbol of perfect balance. Subsequently, their squabble and discord was so odd and inscrutable until we saw their retired marital bliss, isolated from the chaos of bomb-chasing and button-pushing. Funny how the blend of erotic and platonic love that is the true nature of married love is really that way and is honored as such in all ancient and advanced civilizations, East and West...

@TM: You really are on a roll today, waxing eloquent all over the place. Love your haikus. :) When you mentioned the sort of marital bickering we’ve often seen with Rose and Bernard, it reminded me that there are no perfect marriages, because all humans are flawed. Doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. And I smiled to recall one of Fishbiscuit’s discussions of the inter-racial couple, calling them “black and white... er, brown and pink.”

I did some more thinking about Rose, particularly her reaction to Bernard’s surprise gift of a visit to Isaac of Uluru. She yelled at him: “I didn’t ask for this!!” Seems an odd reaction, coming from a woman of faith. But then I imagined this scenario: when Rose received her grim diagnosis, she immediately took it to the Lord in prayer, asking, “What should I do?” And the Lord answered: “Wait.” So she was content to wait, but Bernard was anxious to DO something to get her healed, and got her an appointment with Isaac.

Wow, so beautiful! I'm all welled up! We know the show boils down to what someone'll do for love but it's easy to forget that what with all the other 'stuff' going on! So it was nice to see all the love in one succinct package. You're awesome and very well loved!

I have one nitpick, Nikki. I still maintain that the woman who showed up to tell Locke he was a result of immaculate conception (the Swoosie Kurtz version of Emily), was not his mother at all but someone hired by Anthony Cooper. The reason I think that is that I believe Emily Locke married Roger Linus and died giving birth to Ben, and that Ben and Locke are half-brothers. If Anthony Cooper was willing to go to the trouble of tricking Locke out of his kidney, I don't think he would shrink at hiring an impostor to play Emily -- why bother tracking her down when he knows Locke won't know the difference? I was a little surprised at easily Locke took that bait, until I discovered how desperately he wanted his real parents.

@Jennifer and Rebecca: Interesting theory about the family relationships. I’m currently pondering/crunching on that one. My initial reaction is that the theory has merit. The only thing that makes it hard to think about is how many different actresses have played Emily. A flow chart would be helpful! I always thought that they cast teenage Emily with a young actress who bore a physical resemblance to Swoozie Kurtz. I have a harder time morphing her face into Carrie Preston. I guess my official response is “I don’t know.”

@crazyinlost: Admit it. You’re a Monty Python fan, aren’t you? “Hell’s Grannies”, gangs of little old ladies who prey on fit young men. (Pension day is the worst.) :)

Mostly, I write about television, and with this being the home of the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011, a lot of that television is Joss Whedon-related (when it's not about Lost). Stick around if you love Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Sherlock, Lost, BtVS, Doctor Who, or anything on HBO.

About Me

I've published companion guides to Xena, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alias, and Lost through ECW Press, and my latest book is "Finding Lost — Season Six: The Unofficial Guide." Currently, I love Revenge, Community, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead... actually, pretty much everything on HBO or AMC.

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Your Essential Companions for the Buffy Rewatch!

The Great Buffy Rewatch!

Welcome to the home of the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011, where every Tuesday night we convened to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer from season 1 to the end. I was joined by over 25 guest commentators and Buffy scholars who helped me lead you through the watch, offering non-spoilery discussion for the new watchers as well as spoiler-filled discussions for the rewatchers. The entire Rewatch can be found in the archives here, listed by week and contributor. Go here for the full 2011 schedule, and here to see the list of amazing contributors. And be sure to pick up my book, Bite Me, a complete episode by episode guide to the series!